Paul Foerster - The Goal and the Story

Paul Foerster - The Goal and the Story

The Goal: The Gold

Paul Foerster, Sailor, is the epitome of excellence and perfection. As a two-time Olympian winning a Silver Medal in 1992, Foerster is again avidly training for the Olympics in 2000. His goal is a Gold Medal. In September 1996, he achieved a short-term goal of becoming the J/22 World Champion and is continuing to compete in major regattas to hone his skills.

Paul Foerster - Biography

Paul Foerster has competed in two Olympic Games (1988 and 1992), ten Canadian-American competitions, ten World Championships, the Pan-American Games, and a multitude of additional world-class sailing events. In the last ten years, Foerster has sailed in more than 500 yachting competitions.

Initially, Paul Foerster learned the sport of sailing on the bay front of his home town, Corpus Christi. In 1973, his family moved to the Texas coast from Alice, Texas. That summer his father, Leroy Foerster, sat in a dentist's office reading a sailing magazine, and it inspired him to buy a sailboat. According to Leroy Foerster, "I went up to Kingsville and bought the boat. Then I went to the bookstore and bought a book on how to sail. We bought the boat and the book, and started learning the same day." The ten foot Styrofoam boat with only one sail was called the Sunflower.

In 1982, Paul Foerster's sailing instruction took a dramatic turn when he began sailing with enthusiast and J/24 class National Champion , Bill Allen. Allen was the family's first sailboat racing teacher. As Skipper of the Foerster boat for one year, Allen taught Paul, his father and his brother the sport of sailing. Soon thereafter, the Foerster family purchased a 22 foot cruise boat and made frequent overnight sailing trips to nearby destinations like Rockport, Texas.

During 1983, Paul Foerster arrived at The University of Texas and caught the school's sailing team by surprise. He was an unknown and had not made a name for himself going through the junior ranks of yachting like the majority of the squad. During his years at The University of Texas, he earned the title of All-American champion three times along with a degree in aerospace engineering.

The rest is history. Nineteen years later, Leroy Foerster's son, Paul Foerster, would be wearing an Olympic Silver Medal.

"We had no idea how good he was going to be.... Paul is certainly capable of winning the medal again... I know it was really eating at him when he didn't try for the Games in 1996. I know the hunger is still there," said Bill Draheim, former World Champion and All-American teammate of Foerster's at the University of Texas. Foerster has combined his talent with that of Bob Merrick, five year veteran in the 470 and 2nd place finisher at the 1996 United States 470 Trials, to pursue the Gold in Sydney.

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